Some students left waiting on SAT scores

Updated 11:48 pm, Friday, March 30, 2012

BRIDGEPORT -- While thousands of students who took the SAT on March 10 got their results online Thursday, 295 students who took the test at Bassick High School instead received letters telling them they have the option to take it again.

During the test, a fire alarm went off, disrupting the test. Because it may have interfered with the concentration of some test-takers, students are being offered the option of getting their scores or taking the test again at no cost, said Thomas Ewing, a spokesman for Educational Testing Service, the group that administers the college-readiness test for the College Board.

Students, however, cannot see their scores before deciding whether to take it again.

Ewing said that it sometimes happens that tests are disrupted.

"These kinds of incidents don't happen very often but maybe several times a year. Other noise distractions include marching bands performing outside, noisy construction, and even heat or air conditioning issues. When these disruptive events happen, they throw students off from their testing and concentration, and so we schedule a make-up very quickly," said Ewing.

Students from a variety of towns, including Fairfield, took the test at Bassick along with Bridgeport's high school students.

The letter, dated March 22, told students to call the College Board by noon Wednesday if they wanted to retake the test on Saturday. If that date is inconvenient, they still had to call before Saturday to let them know they wanted to take a retest.

Even if they chose to stick with the scores they got, the students won't get them until after the makeup test has been administered to the students who choose to take it, Ewing said.

Both Bassick Principal Alejandro Ortiz and Fairfield Warde Headmaster James Coyne said they didn't know anything about the letters or testing mishap. George Moran, head of guidance at Central Magnet School, said at least one student who took the SAT at Bassick on March 10 told him he got the retake offer in the mail.